


Save

by MakeSadieStop



Series: Nothing Hurts [4]
Category: Naruto
Genre: "Friendly massage", (Pfff who does Naruto think he's kidding), (Seriously she scares the crap out of Naruto), Backrubs, DAMN at least /Naruto/ knows how it works, Does Gaara know how the dirty works?, Especially Overprotective Temari, Even More Fluff, Fluff, Jinchuuriki Angst, Kissing, Loving Teasing Siblings, M/M, Overprotective Siblings, Sleepy Cuddles, Who's to say?, kissing everywhere
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-18
Updated: 2017-06-18
Packaged: 2018-11-15 19:30:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,102
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11237682
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MakeSadieStop/pseuds/MakeSadieStop
Summary: Gaara and Naruto get caught napping, and I promise my writing skills are better than my wordplay. Ends with a bang. (Seriously, stop me.)





	Save

Gaara wonders where they get these _ideas_.

The second sight of his day was a rude awakening, compared to the first. Then again, that’s not all too difficult, since the first was Naruto’s neck. It’s a very nice neck, the kind of neck everyone should have the pleasure of waking up to, at least one morning—afternoon? Evening? This sleep was so peaceful, he doesn’t even know, and the thought is so alien yet so calming.

But he’s perfect, with the slope from jaw to shoulder molded like whatever or whoever made _him_ had Gaara in mind from the start. Gaara’s head fit there, just right, surrounded by _warmth_ and _pulse_ and _life_ and _Naruto_ , all one beautiful existence wrapped up together, until this insomniac was tempted to return to sleep. Forever. Sleep is the perfect thing because it’s the thing that makes Uzumaki Naruto stay.

But there was a creeping feeling on the back of his neck and he couldn’t. Not the graze of Naruto’s fingers, those had migrated down to the small of his back by then—and besides, this new feeling just wasn’t _right_ , while Naruto’s touch couldn’t be anything else. So he raised his head, and he angled his neck, and they were not alone.

He doesn’t understand their faces. It’s innocent. They’re not even under the covers. Gaara was sleeping, actively and exclusively, only moments ago. And Naruto, well, he still is. Temari would’ve needed to blow this house off its foundation if she’d wanted the Seventh Hokage to even stir.

So why does she look so _scandalized_? And just _what_ is Kankuro _muttering_ in between snickers? Gaara doesn’t understand it in the slightest until he _does_ and suddenly such warmth has rushed up to his face that he’s quite sure his tattoo must be invisible against the blazing red background.

It’s not his fault that Naruto wanted to fix the insomnia. And it’s not his fault that this is the most comfortable way to pin someone down to a bed, with his knees to either side of _someone_ ’s hips. And it’s least of all his fault that his siblings hadn’t knocked, that they hadn’t remembered last night’s appointment, that the constant quaver in Gaara’s voice whenever he spoke of it hadn’t led them to anticipate this.

“Gaara, I _just_ washed your sheets.”

“Eh?”

Of course the moment that Kankuro opens his mouth is also the exact moment that Naruto wakes up. Between the two, Gaara is ready to hold a Sand Waterfall Funeral for himself right about now.

He dives into the crook of Naruto’s neck again, realizing the mistake the instant he makes it.

“Wow, you’re hot.” Naruto could have considered a better choice of words, if he was so concerned about the apparent raise in temperature. ‘Wow, you’re _warm_.’ ‘Wow, you’re _feverish_.’ Gaara runs through a dozen alternatives before Temari jumps on it.

“Wow, _your_ _phrasing_.”

“Before this goes any further, I want to make sure you know that you _can’t_ break the face of the Leaf Village. You’re just not allowed, okay? My visage will live forever on the side of a mountain and its nose must be intact.”

“I’m sure your face isn’t the body part that got you into this.”

“Well, I mean, if you think about it—”

Gaara yanks hard on Naruto’s shirt collar, and the gesture must effectively translate to ‘rhetorical,’ because he shuts up. At least, he shuts up about body parts.

“Gaara couldn’t sleep.”

“I can’t imagine why.”

“It’s not like that! Really! Believe it!”

The two words, always _his_ words, have never sounded so panicked. Gaara might find the shrill and the blushing cute, if they were alone. As it is, all he can do is agree wholeheartedly (though incoherently) with the sentiment.

It doesn’t take Kankuro as long to have resigned to the situation. He reminds their sister, “I did say he’d be interesting.”

“And that you were going to kill him. I’m going to have to steal that part from you.”

“Wait, when-?” Naruto does not like the direction this conversation has taken, but first he has to figure out where it came from. Yet he is ignored.

“I didn’t _say_ it, I told _you two_ that I _thought_ it. And I changed my mind since then.”

“I’ve changed my mind, too. Now I agree with you ten years ago.”

“Isn’t it Gaara’s job to threaten your boyfriends? Not the other way around?”

That single word is sufficient motivation for Gaara to jump off Naruto, and then the bed. (He has decided that ‘jump’ will stand in for ‘fall’ throughout this episode.)

As he tries to remember whether he wants to be on the ceiling or the floor, not to mention which is which, Naruto does yet another gentlemanly thing and explains. It’s a good thing that no one has demanded he keep his hands in his pockets this time, because they won’t stop twitching and windmilling every which way, rising and falling with the pitch of his voice.

“We had our sake, right? And then, well, I must’ve been a little tipsy already because Gaara told me we should come here and eat before I went staggering off to an inn or somewhere. And we did. And then, um, after dinner, we had a little talk—about—love—”

“I’m sure you did.”

“Seriously, no euphemisms here! All we did was talk, until . . . we didn’t?”

Naruto doesn’t know how to say it, and that makes it sound so much worse than if he really had.

Temari is gripping her fan. It’s not open, but if anything, it does more damage to a man when it’s compact and blunt.

“He kissed me. Then we slept. He helped.”

Gaara wonders, fleetingly, if his gourd is formed and in the house. He’s thinking about bashing his own head into it so he won’t have to talk again.

Two-thirds of the Three Sand Siblings consider it. One has a question.

“You were respectful?”

“I—well, I hope so!”

Kankuro is satisfied, while Naruto is still terrified. Temari apparently decides on the least violent course of action, which is helping Gaara up to his feet. He needs to lean on her now, like he did the day of the Konoha Crush, after the fight.

Like he leaned on Naruto last night, after the kiss.

It always comes down to the same one human.

“Put the rest of your clothes on, both of you. Gaara has to go out. Naruto . . . Don’t break anything.”

‘Or I’ll break you’ goes unsaid, but the full effect is still felt—seen, too, in the nervous bob of Naruto’s Adam’s apple.

Gaara’s sister is classy like that.

***

The Fifth Kazekage may not need to patrol Suna's perimeter, but Temari’s baby brother does. The trio has reached the very edges, where there’s just enough green for the land to be alive, before any subject is raised besides the safety of the village.

Even if his siblings don’t see the new topic as anything different.

“He’s the Hokage, Gaara.” Kankuro doesn’t state the obvious like that. It makes no sense.

“That’s why he’s here.” They’ve been over this already.

“He’s Hokage, so he’s thinking about Leaf. Not Sand.”

“There’s an Alliance, Temari. It’s not Leaf and Sand, Fire and Wind. Only shinobi!”

Gaara shouldn’t have to remind them. It’s only been four years. Not to mention, Temari knows better than anyone.

The children of Rasa all have the same grimace. Temari’s especially won’t let up.

He really shouldn’t, but he does it anyway.

“What about Shikamaru?”

“That’s different.” Gaara was prepared for the words, but he wasn’t at all prepared for how small her voice is now.

“Their strategist. His advisor. And not half as forgiving. If one of our—” He doesn’t want to draw the parallel. He doesn’t want to give the same word.

“Companions?”

He wants to tell Kankuro that the suggestion is _worse_ , but it fills the silence and lets him go on.

“—is going to be a threat to the village—if you’re going to worry about a conflict of interest—sister, shouldn’t you have a look at yours?”

They all have the same mouths, but only Temari and Kankuro share the same eyes. It’s never more apparent than when Gaara has to watch them lock.

“We just don’t want you to get hurt, Gaara. I mean . . . Sure I teased you. I’m your big brother. But did you get it? Do you even know how to deal with _this_ _kind_ of love? Do you know how—two people—”

Kankuro struggles for so long that his halting speech says everything.

The tattoo is invisible again. Gaara envies his brother’s facepaint. “I _know_. The _theory_.”

“When—”

“Shukaku. Before the exam. Wanted me to be _prepared_ for dirty older ninja. Such as _my own siblings_ , apparently.”

Gaara doesn’t want to talk about it. He wants to talk about how his biju _knew_ _everything_ even less.

“Okay, the _theory_ , but the . . . practice?” Temari didn’t take his words to heart, it seems. Her dark eyes have their sparkle back.

“I haven’t _practiced_!”

Gaara isn’t sure which is worse: questioning Naruto’s loyalties, or questioning his . . . other interests.

He’s also not sure why they’ve stopped frowning. This is still very serious, perhaps even more so. But they’re almost—

“Did you drag me to the outskirts of the village so you could giggle about my sex life?!”

This is the downside of _not_ being a terrible monster in your family’s eyes.

***

Gaara’s pride still aches, but not as much as his back.

He’s been carrying this gourd for so many years that he should be used to it by now. The trouble is that he doesn’t wear it if he’s on an exclusively sandy terrain. He’s been cooped up in his office for too long, if the weight is so unfamiliar already.

He could dissipate it at any time, but where will the special, chakra-infused sand go in the desert? He went out with it, so it looks like he’ll need to go back with it. And it’s not like he’ll let the soreness show in front of his brother and sister. They just got in a good mood again, even if it was at his expense.

“Make sure Naruto really didn’t break anything,” Temari tells him as they reach the door.

“I don’t know if he’s still here,” Gaara admits. “It took us hours to patrol.”

Of course it wasn’t entirely a front. The workaholic tendency runs in the family.

“Just survey the damage and call us if it’s a wreck,” Kankuro advises. It’s reasonable, but that’s not the prospect that has Gaara frowning. They must see this, because each ninja rests a hand on his shoulder before turning away.

He is alone outside his own home. He’s not sure what to hope for inside.

One step in and there he is. At the table to start, tensing and raising halfway from his seat at the muffled thud of the door.

“How’d it go?”

It’s not even in his ear this time. The pipe is getting truly out of hand.

“Fine. Nothing wrong.”

“I mean how did it _really_ go.”

“I said—”

“You don’t get hurried out of your house for just a routine patrol after your big bro and big sis caught you in bed with a guy.”

“You say it so dramatically.” They were in bed, but they hadn’t been— _in bed_.

“But I’m not wrong, am I? What’d they want?”

Gaara only has the energy, emotional and all the others, to share one of the two things they wanted. It’s between making Naruto frown and making himself blush.

It only takes a heartbeat to decide, but feels as though it takes much longer to say. “They wanted to know if I’d had—‘the talk.’”

He mutters the last part, even if he doesn’t entirely know why. There’s nothing wrong with the words on their own. Only the emphasis.

Naruto is taken aback, but at least he’s not hurt. More than that, Uzumaki Naruto isn’t laughing at him.

“Did they think you’d need it?”

Gaara shrugs. And with the tired muscles, that makes him wince.

The subject is dropped, and so is all pretense. “Take that thing off and sit down.”

No point in arguing. Naruto is more than capable of picking him up and carrying him—with or without the gourd, Gaara will bet. Not that it matters, since he’s unstrapped it and set it by the door before searching for the seat.

“No, no, not the table. The bed.”

It’s always just one word that gets him.

“You’re tired, and sore, and I want you to be able to lay right down if you need to. So get over there.”

A moment’s hesitation, but Naruto has that look in his eye, so Gaara really does have no choice but to seat himself on the edge of his bed. He hasn’t counted two breaths yet—he’s taking them slowly—when he nearly falls backwards from a shifting in the mattress. Naruto’s knees.

Naruto’s _hands_.

“Wh-wh-what’re you—” Gaara is not an Academy schoolgirl. He knows this, but his voice does not.

“Your shoulders are sore, aren’t they? And your back. I can’t do anything about it if I don’t touch you.”

A pause, in which Naruto’s hands find their way to the small knob in between Gaara’s neck and spine, and Gaara’s heartbeat finds its way to everywhere. “We pretty much made out, ya know. Then you slept next to me, and then on top of me. A friendly massage is over the line?”

“There is no line, but your ha- _ahhhh_ —”

Gaara prefers to think of the sound he just made as a sigh of relief. Not a moan of—something else.

“You okay there?”

“It’s fine.”

The twisty-breathy ‘fine.’ The ‘fine’ that makes Naruto first tense, then shake.

“Ya know, if it’s helping you that much, I know how it could get even more effective.”

“How?”

“Take off your shirt.”

There’s more than one pipe. There are a dozen pipes because the air leaves a dozen times faster.

He’s dimly aware of nodding, nodding hard and fast and long enough that Naruto has to hold his chin to make it stop once he’s ready to pull the thing off over his head.

And Gaara is so cold, until the exact moment that Naruto goes back to work and everything’s on fire again.

He’s down to Gaara’s ribcage now. Gaara has made so many noises, and explained them away with so many iterations of ‘fine’ and ‘good’ and a single pleading ‘don’t stop,’ when Naruto has one more suggestion.

“On your back.”

It takes Gaara longer than it should to spot the problem. “You’re rubbing my back.”

“Yeah, and totally neglecting your front. Down and over, ‘coon eyes.”

He doesn’t know if the feat is accomplished of his own will or Naruto’s, but he’s there. Naruto is above him. Everything blurs except for blue.

“Is this okay?”

Gaara wonders what about this could be anything _but_ okay, until he comes down to Earth for long enough to notice the gentle but undeniable _presence_ over his hips. He can feel Naruto’s knees in the mattress again.

It’s the exact way they were sleeping, he realizes, only reversed.

And Naruto is awake. And so is Gaara. More awake than he has ever been, than anyone has ever been, even an insomniac.

“What's that about a pipe?”

Gaara hasn’t answered yet. At least, not consciously—not in a way Naruto understands.

“It’s fine.”

This time, Naruto doesn’t just tense. He _groans_ , and the next thing Gaara can feel is Naruto’s head in the crook of his neck. Just like before, only awake.

And not his head. His mouth. Just his mouth and then his teeth and _oh_.

“Not fair,” Gaara manages.

“What?” Naruto doesn’t pull away. Words meet skin.

“ _Your_ shirt.”

Naruto’s mind is faster than everyone gives him credit for, because he puts it together before Gaara even knows what he’s trying to say. He’s still trying to remember how to count his breaths when the jacket and the shirt both hit the floor.

His eyes are first drawn to the spiral. It strikes him that it looks something like the sun. The center of everything. But then his sense halfway returns and he realizes what it must be.

Before he knows it, he’s pulled his neck away from Naruto’s reach and curled his spine upward to bring himself level with it. Naruto doesn’t seem to know what to think.

“Um. Kurama loves you, too?” He finishes the quizzical response with a faint laugh.

As in everything, Gaara emulates Naruto. He only stops and moves enough for the words to make it out at all. “ _This._ Why we’re here.”

He’s almost afraid that Naruto doesn’t get it, but then he shows that he does: first with a soft ‘oh,’ then with a hand to cradle his head, and finally with an answer.

“Being jinchuriki. Understanding. That’s it.”

If Gaara nods, he’ll disturb Naruto’s hand, and he doesn’t want the petting to stop. So he lets his breath of relief out against Naruto’s navel speak for itself.

“I’m sorry I laughed.”

Gaara is even willing to shake his head, vigorously, because Uzumaki Naruto has nothing to be sorry for. But before he can, he’s laid back down. Gradually. Still cradled.

“Well, if we’re talking about _fairness_ —”

Yes. Gaara said that. Back when he had words.

“Where was _your_ seal, before they pulled him out?”

Gaara shrugs. This time, the gesture doesn’t hurt. It can’t hurt, not here, not _him_.

“Right, right, you were born with him. Guess you didn’t have a jutsu on your body like me. At least, not a visible one.”

Naruto has to think about it before he continues. By the time he’s done, he’s smiling.

“So, would you say . . .” Naruto’s hand. Gaara’s heart. One above the other.

“Your seal was invisible. Does that mean that it was spread _everywhere_? Your _whole_ body-- _every_ last _centimeter_ of it?”

Gaara can’t disagree. He’s never thought about it, he admits. He has no idea why Naruto is thinking about it now until he _does_ and _pipe **pipe PIPE**_ **.**

Because Naruto has leaned down. And his lips are where his hand just was, right over Gaara’s heart because he must be determined to make it burst out of his chest. And he only lifts his head for a moment after that, to set Gaara on fire.

“Guess I’d better get started, huh?”

Sleep is not the perfect thing tonight.

**Author's Note:**

> There's only one actual, technical *note* to this. I've decided that, for jutsu names and et cetera, if there's any disparity among the three translation names (anime sub, anime dub, Viz), I'm going with the anime sub version since that's most widely known. However, for disparity among Romanized spellings, I'm going with what's in Shonen Jump because that's what I'm most accustomed to.br />  
> My next not-really-a-note is an apology. I really hope I did the relationship dynamic of the Three Sand Siblings justice, but I felt like I made it a cliché romantic plot device. I'm REALLY sorry about this, because Temari is my favorite kunoichi aside from Sakura. I really tried. Then again, I'm my harshest critic, so maybe it didn't suck. I don't know.  
> I had a kind of tough time titling this one, and I don't think the connection is as obvious as in the past three, so I'll try to explain (defend?) myself a little here. Basically, 'Save' is a reference to Gaara's core belief that Naruto saved him from himself because of their shared experienced as jinchuruki. It comes into play most obviously at the end, but I think it's foreshadowed a little when Gaara is frustrated that his siblings don't trust Naruto to treat him well.  
> I'm torn on how to continue this--how to open the next part, mostly, since I've actually plotted the majority of it out. Not sure if I want to time-skip in the next one, or pick up pretty much right where it left off. Hooooo boy any advice? Recommendations? Requests?
> 
> Finally, I HAVE WANTED TO WRITE GAARA KISSING NARUTO'S SEAL FOR SO LONG YOU /SERIOUSLY/ DON'T UNDERSTAND.


End file.
